THE IMPACT OF STATE TERRORISM ON REGIONAL SECURITY: ( THE SYRIAN REGIME POST-2010 AS A CASE STUDY).

Abstract

The state terrorism concept refers to deeds of violence that the state undertakes against its citizens or foreign targets. The state resorts to terrorism to destroy the collective will of the people and paralyze its political effectiveness, as the country turns into a large prison, in which the authority exercises all ways of the psychological and physical torture, and carry out massacres. Over the past twenty years and under the emergency law and conventional law, human rights and fundamental freedoms in Syria, have witnessed continuing violations. This research will shed a light on violence in which practiced by the Assad regime (father and son) and answering the questions that, is state terrorism is a new phenomenon to the Assad regime?, what are the effects and consequences of organized terrorism on the globalization of terrorism in the regional and international environment?

The hypotheses of the research are:

1. For several decades the Syrian regime has practiced organized terrorism (state terrorism), but after 2011 the circle of repressive practices in all its forms expanded, which show in an unprecedented way, the terrorism actions of the Syrian state.


2. Without international coalitions and without regional and international support, the state terrorism of the Syrian government would not have existed. In addition, the terrorism of the Syrian state left a direct impact on the emergence of terrorist groups and organizations that practiced international terrorism, which means the terrorism act of the regime, had fueled international terrorism (the globalization of terrorism).

The research conclusion is that, the state terrorism in Syria began when the Assad family took power in Syria, and it practiced repression and violence in a planned and systematic way that symbolized state terrorism in Syria. The events of 2011 did not generate state terrorism, as that state terrorism existed before this period, but rather revealed the true face of the Assad regime and its organized terror acts against its population; this affected the emergence of another terrorist phenomenon, which organized by those groups and organizations against the Syrian regime and soon recognized themselves as a state (the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant/ISIL). This state practiced terrorism on a high and brutal level, and with its ideas, actions and criminal activities exceeded all international moral, religious and legal standards; subsequently, the ideas, actions and activities of this so called ISIL, threatened the whole world.